I’ve been an avid reader throughout my entire life and have read thousands of non-fiction books and articles. Today I cleaned out my bookshelf and had to give over one hundred and fifty books away, keeping only a few for future reference. Fiction has no place in my life, as I love the learning process as well. How else can a person learn?
Schools are full of books, as are libraries and bookstores. Surprisingly, I read an article on the internet where it is claimed that some college students barely know how to read at all. It makes you wonder how they passed all other grades to get where they are today. They are not being taught; they are only being indoctrinated into Godless zombies. (Teachers unions are very powerful today.) Thank God there are always exceptions.
To me, the most important things a person can learn are revealed only in the Bible. It answers the questions of why we are here, how we got here, where we are going, and how to get there from here. That said, books are written with many and diverse topics, but when we lean on our own or another person’s understanding of the Bible, we fall short of knowing God in an intimate way. All men are fallible – God is not. Men often stumble over interpretation with their own way of thinking.
When Sarah, Abraham’s wife, was told by the angels (in human disguise) that she would bear a child, she laughed unbelievingly. After all, she was an old woman, and her husband Abraham was even older. Who wouldn’t? After waiting, she apparently forgot or dismissed the promise and felt desperate to have a child to call her own and have an heir for Abraham. That’s where her handmaiden came in.
Hagar was her name, but even though she was not a believer in Abraham’s God, Hagar the infidel bore him a son she named Ishmael. Not having inquired of God, human logic stepped in, and that’s why we Christians and Jews have enmity with Ishmael’s descendants even today. Because we always favor logic over faith. Even in Christianity, logic and faulty manmade edicts and philosophies rule the day. Judaism is no exception, relying on tradition and manmade thought. Again, there are always exceptions, but very few.
The Apostle Paul said this in 1 Corinthians 2:6-16:
“We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom a mystery that has been hidden and that God detained for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: ‘what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no human mind has conceived, the things God has prepared for those who love him.’
“These are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way, no one knows what the thoughts of God are except the spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught to us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.
“The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God; he considers them foolishness and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for who knows the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”
As we read the Bible with our own understanding, we fail to see the big picture. Some pastors also fail and think they draw crowds by their charisma or charm, while others teach that we can approach God only through speaking gibberish, handling poisonous snakes, or dancing like the Whirling Dervish sect. In so doing, we fail to appropriate the Holy Spirit who opens our eyes through God’s eternal word- the Holy Bible. This can only happen when seeking God and finding out what pleases him.
Other Books:
I thank God for books that help fill in the blanks with human thoughts of historical significance or scientific inquiry. Indeed, human thought is limited to what we see, hear, or think about things pertaining to life, and there are plenty of writers who will try to impose on your mind their own thoughts – thoughts that can enlighten your mind or poison it. So be very careful in these final days, as there are many who go about in sheep’s clothing seeking whom they may destroy.
The book I’m presently reading is A History of the Jews by Paul Johnson. In it we are told of the many contributions by the Jews to mankind – their trials and tribulations and why this was so. These stories help a person understand how the Bible foretold these events, often in minute detail by the prophets of old. Indeed, they were a blessing to the unlearned heathen of the day who were provoked to jealousy by their knowledge and insatiable appetite for reading and writing.
The list of Jewish contributors to society and mankind is too large to count, but let me just name a few: Moses, who gave us the Ten Commandments, tops the list. Issac Newton, Albert Einstein, and, of course, Neil Diamond.
My hope is that you will take time out from football and other such distractions, pick up the Bible and prayerfully explore it in preparation for the rapture, which is soon to come.
YBIC
Jim Towers
You can write me at jt.filmmaker@yahoo.com or visit me at www.dropzonedelta.com. You can also find me on my newly restructured website www.propheticsignsandwonders.com , which now features the Gospel and videos of worldwide events taking place in present time, as well as proof of God’s existence and the reality of Biblical places, and Moses himself.